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I take great photos but what should I charge for them? Article 3 – Value Added Pricing.

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

Hi all … Here is the last of my 3 articles on Pricing and what you should charge for your great photos.  This articles deals with the concept of value added pricing. This strategy is widely promoted in the B2B (Business to Business) Sale, particularly in the delivery of complex systems. It is based on the principle of fixing your price based on the value it delivers your customer e.g. Let’s say you develop a specialist purchasing software that can save the potential customers company 200,000 a year. At what price do you pitch your solution? 5000, 50000, 100000 what about 200,000 over 3 years? They save 600,000 over 3 years less the 200,000 they pay you, meaning the still have a net saving of 400,000. Could you sell this system at this price? Why not?, is every one not a winner at this price. This method of determining prices needs highly trained sales people and the more complex the solution the more effective it is. So as photographers what can we learn from value added pricing strategies and how can we used value added pricing for a wedding album or indeed a quality portrait?

Well let’s think about this one… what is the value of quality wedding photography? … Precious memories that will not be repeated again … a timeless keepsake reminder of the day a woman dreams about since being a little girl … and if that was not enough probably the only memory spark she will have of one of the most hectic days of her life … Think about it, If you are married how much of your wedding day do you actually remember? If you are like most I have talked to … very little. So in fact your great photos are in fact priceless … I have spoken to many a bride after getting lousy photos taken by unprofessional photographers who still cry when they think about their wedding album keepsake.

While you may not be able to use value added pricing strategy to fix your price at crazy figures you should be able to use the principle of value added pricing to justify why you charge the price a professional album sells for. Why not show the bride the difference between what you supply and an amateur will supply… Show her the value of what you as a professional provide. Use effective questioning to determine her budget and show her how you add value to ensure she has quality lasting memories forever of her dream day which is typically a forgotten haze without the memory spark of quality photography.

I hope you have gotten something from my 3 articles on pricing and I look forward to your comments and suggestions. If there is a sale’s or marketing topic you would like me to address please post a moment here or email me at pvphotoman@photovalue.com.

PV Photoman

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I take Great Photos but what should I charge for them? – Article 2 – Competitor Analysis Pricing and what will the customer pay.

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Hi All Again. Following my last article answering the above great question… here is the second article on pricing in the series of three. Hopefully at the end of these articles you will have all the possible pricing strategies

So the second pricing strategy is Competitor Analysis Pricing. Competitor Analysis is a tool often used in strategy development particularly with the Strength & Weaknesses dimensions of the SWOT analysis tool. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal business considerations targeted at your internal company. To qualify to be a “Strength” it must be something that you are better than your competition at… For example Ryanair are known to have a much lower cost base than much of their competition and is therefore a definite Strength.  For something to be a weakness again it should be measured against the competition… Right now Willie Walsh the CEO of British Airways probably regards the unionised culture within BA as a weakness when comparing BA to Ryanair. I hope this explains the S&W parts of SWOT. So what has this to do with pricing?

Well often some companies do “Competitor Analysis Pricing” by looking simply at what their competition charge for something and then just matching or indeed beating it. Have you done this? … I have in the past … and what a fatal mistake when done on its own.  Why is it a fatal mistake on its own? Well it takes no account of measuring your actual costs which could result in you selling below cost … Even worse what if your costs were higher than your competitors and you pitched your prices lower? What then … Well you could start a price war against a competitor who can beat you in this price war will eventually put you out of business.

Another strategy often employed is “Asking the customer what they are willing to pay?” Again accepting these prices without knowing your costs or indeed your competitors pricing can cause you to do work at a loss or again significantly undercut a competitor and start an unnecessary price war. I am not saying not to ask the customer what they are willing to pay as this can be a great way to identify their available budget but make sure if you ask them this that you know what you can offer them for this price and still make a profit.

The above of blindly just doing something reminds me of something my Mother used to say when I used to use my Brother as an excuse to justify doing something wrong … My Mother used to say “If my brother jumped off a cliff would I jump off after him” … Guess she didn’t know I was a superhero who could fly … eh!

Next week we will discuss Value – added pricing in the last of these pricing articles.

Bye for now

PV Photoman

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What can I learn from my Boss? It’s a big weekend for him … but as always he is trying to deliver win:win scenarios … can you learn anything from these to apply to your customers?

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

Hi All,

PV Photoman here…  It’s very hard to believe that it is 8 weeks since I started this sales & marketing blog with the aim of delivering you thoughts and ideas around sales & marketing. I have attempted this every week so far but only you can judge. This week however I will depart a little and help out my boss Ronan Ryle Sales & Marketing Director of Photovalue.com who indeed was my creator and employer… This is one of his biggest weekends of the year … the SWPP annual convention where Photovalue are a Gold Sponsor.

So back to my boss… I know he spends allot of time preparing deals that might appeal to our customers for the coming year. Before we analysis the marketing thoughts behind these deals and if there is anything we can learn from or transfer to a photography business let’s look at these deals open to photographer’s across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Here they are:

Free Blocking on Folders & Mounts

FreeBlocking

 

 

  

Ok so what was going through my bosses marketing mind when he created this? Yeah I can see the win:win for both the Photographer & Photovalue. The win for the photographer is a FREE way to promote your business … by blocking your folders & strut mounts allows you to present  your photography in photographic folders and strut mounts that carry your name. This means every time someone sees your work they see your details just like when someone views a painting and the artists signature is there… and the advantage to Photovalue? … well provided the price is no more or indeed better you are probably going to be more loyal to Photovalue rather than changing. So my question to you is how can you make your customer more loyal? (Why not see my blog on the LTV of your bride…)

OK so what other offer do they have:

 CompleteStudioSamplePackage

I like this one… what does it try and achieve? Firstly it try’s and make it easier on you to offer the Photovalue.com offering … however it also has your customer in mind or as already referred to in a previous blog we need tom think about our customers customer. Ronan try’s to achieve this in this offering by allowing your customer (the bride) have access to the all the possibilities. I know he is my boss but the 10/10/10 offer is genius… the benefit to you as a customer is obvious … you can get your already heavily discounted £350 in studio samples  back but to achieve this you must become a loyal customer. So how can you do this with your customers?… and make sure you achieve the LTV.

 So his next offer is what?

1in7     1in10     1in12

         

Again from what I can see … not one or two but three win:win situations. You as Photovalue’s customer win in that by buying from photovalue you get rewarded for being a loyal customer by getting albums for FREE, Photovalue gain’s by having loyal customers, win:win. What can you do to create win:win scenario’s for your customers?

How can you create win:win in your business?

Hope you enjoyed this slight departure from my usual blog topics. If you can visit Ronan & Hannah at SWPP 2010 in the Novotel London West between 15th & 17th of January. Unfortunately I cannot be there in person … You know us superhero’s … busy flying here and there … doing our best to save mankind.

Talk to you all again next week.

PV Photoman

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